A Dec. 7 trial date has been given a California man charged with automobile homicide in the death of a woman in an accident on the Burr Trail last July.
In addition to the felony, Michael Allen Sterger, 29, of Cypress, Calif., has been charged in 6th District Court with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanors.Prosecutors say Sterger was operating the vehicle from which Michelle Eckroth, 26, Huntington Beach, Calif., was ejected through the windshield when the car veered off the road and struck a boulder.
She later died in a Page, Ariz., hospital.
During a preliminary hearing, Don Dudrey, Garden Grove, Calif., testified that both he and Sterger had been drinking beer and that Sterger smoked marijuana only a few minutes before the accident.
Dudrey said that Eckroth had neither used drugs nor consumed alcohol before her death.
Garfield County Sheriff's Deputy Shawn Draper testified he found marijuana in Sterger's vehicle, but Sterger's attorney, Philip Foremaster, of St. George, argued that the evidence had been obtained by illegal search.
Sterger is free on $2,000 bail pending trial.